


you will live (from day to day)

by whiplash



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Illness, Spoilers: S4E22
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 07:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3969227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiplash/pseuds/whiplash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harold's heart stops working and John deals with the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you will live (from day to day)

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the final episode of Season 4. I saw Harold go down and, as an old SPN fan, the first thought through my mind was _"oh, I wonder if that damaged his heart"_. So here we go...

There’s a loud thud, followed shortly by another. Bear barks, sharp and high.

John moves, fast but not unthinking. Root’s faster though, younger and lighter on her feet. No one can enter the safe house without setting off the alarms. John draws his gun all the same. Then he lengthens his stride so that he can shoulder past Root just before she steps through the door. 

She rolls her eyes at him, but lets him pass. Clever girl, that one. There are a dozen great reasons, and another half dozen good ones, as to why John should be the first one through that door. Through most doors, most of the time actually. John appreciates that Root tends to accept that. He also wonders, somewhat wistfully, how to make the others follow her lead. 

In the office they find Harold knocked-out on the floor. Bear stands guard over him. 

Without a word John leaves Root to care for Harold. Distantly he hears her call _Harry! Harry, can you hear me?_ while he searches for intruders. He’s learned to recognize anger in himself and knows how to force his emotions into cold, steady focus. Into welcomed tools in any situation. He clears room after room, finds the alarms untriggered and untampered with, the doors and windows still locked. 

“John!” 

The urgency in Root’s voice stops him mid-step. 

“Bring the defibrillator!” 

_Now_ he moves without thinking. Refusing to even speculate, he returns to find Root still kneeling by Harold’s side. She’s tipped his head back and covered his mouth with her own. As he watches, she fills Harold’s lungs with just enough air to make his chest rise. Then she straightens up, folds her hands and places them on Harold’s chest before pushing down against his heart. She counts out loud and stares furiously and wet-eyed at John. 

“Move it!” she snaps. 

There’s bile rising in John’s throat. He swallows it down, then opens the defibrillator box and follows the voice prompts. Harold’s skin is cold and clammy under John’s hands. He risks a glance at Harold’s face. The glasses are gone and Harold looks strangely naked without them. There are shadows underneath his eyes. Has been for months now, the dark smears refusing to shift no matter what John does to encourage the man to step away from the computers every once in a while. 

“Stand clear,” John repeats when prompted to do so. He meets Root’s eyes for a second, then John looks away. It’s too much like looking into a mirror. Bear’s wet nose digs into the palm of John’s hand and he absently rubs his fingers over scratchy fur. 

After an eternity the recorded voice orders them to continue CPR. 

“Take over for me,” Root says. John doesn’t question her, just shifts into position and begins compressions. Distantly he hears Root continue; “Don’t stop. I’ll be back with help.” 

There’s no help, John thinks. With Samaritan and her agents out there, who could possibly help them? 

xxx 

He blows air into Harold’s lungs. Pushes down against his chest. Keeps count in his head. 

Don’t get sloppy, he reminds himself over the drone of the recorded voice. Keep a steady rhythm, press down just the right amount, let go so that the chest can rise again. Make sure to have clear airways, don’t overinflate the lungs and _don’t get sloppy._

xxx 

He cracks one of Harold’s ribs. The sound’s loud and sudden. Bear yelps and whines, like an unhappy puppy. John doesn’t have the spare energy to send him away. Eventually the dog just lies down next to Harold, head hanging low. 

xxx 

Normally John has a fairly accurate sense of time. But not now. Ten minutes might have passed, or thirty. Or more. The muscles in his arms burn. His lungs burn too. One more set, he tells himself. Just one more set. 

xxx 

The alarms go off, but he doesn’t reach for his gun. He can’t move his arms. They’re locked in place as he pushes down and straightens up, down and up, down and up… John’s given up on counting. And rescue breathing. All he’s able to do are the chest compressions. And even those are sloppy now. Not deep enough. Not good enough. 

He hears them coming, but doesn’t raise his head. It doesn’t matter anyway. If they’re Samaritan agents, he has no information of worth to betray. And without Harold, John has no value as a bargaining chip. They’ll kill him fast or they’ll kill him slow. There are worse fates than a bullet in the head and a shallow grave. He just hopes Root’s smart enough to stay away. 

“Move out of the way,” a familiar voice orders. 

John lifts his head, a little too fast. The world starts spinning. And it doesn’t stop. 

Eventually strong arms drag him away from Harold. He finds himself with a lap full of anxious, wriggling dog. John’s arms are too heavy for him to lift. He’s numb and hot and cold all at once. It feels like bleeding out alone in the sand. It feels like watching Carter die on a street in New York. 

For a while he watches them work on Harold. Then he looks down at the ground. 

Root hunches down next to him. Her face’s neutral, but her eyes wild. The way they had been when they lost Sameen. Only now she’s quiet and then she had been screaming. John had hurt for her then. He had hurt with her. Now he selfishly wonders if things would have been different if Sameen had still been with them. If she would have been able to save Harold where John had failed. 

“As soon as he’s stable enough they’ll move him to another location,” Root says. “I have to stay here. Take care of things. But you’ll go with Harry, of course. Keep him safe for us.” 

John stares at her in surprise. She looks serious. As if she really thinks that he can keep Harold safe. 

As if she thinks Harold will live. 

xxx 

The men carrying the stretcher – stone-faced and armed, not your run of the mill paramedics – shuffle impatiently but Root still takes the time to press her lips against Harold’s grey face. There’s a mask over his nose and mouth now. He’s hooked up to several small, portable machines. John has muted the sounds around him but he’s still aware of the fact that Harold’s still, technically, alive. 

Root walks over to John, stands up on tip-toe and kisses his cheek too. 

“Bear,” she then calls, turning her back on them before he’s had a chance to react. _“Hier.”_

xxx 

He sits in an empty room. Waiting for something. Root’s arrival maybe. 

Instead the door opens and a smartly-dressed woman lets Fusco through the door. He looks haggard and stinks of sweat as he sinks down in the empty chair next to John. He’s holding a cup of coffee, offering it to John first before wrestling off the lid and taking a big gulp himself. 

“Tastes like shit,” he grimly reports. “And you look like shit.” 

John turns away, staring at an empty patch on the wall. He wonders who was dumb enough to let a cop into the waiting room of an illegal clinic. Wonders how Root’s making it all happen. Wonders, without caring much about the answer, how she hopes to keep them hidden from Samaritan. 

“How’s he doing?” Fusco continues, talking like a man who’s used to getting ignored. 

John doesn’t answer and after a while Fusco leaves. John doesn’t blame him. 

He’s not very good company right now. 

xxx 

After some time Fusco returns with a blanket, some coffee in a real cup and a banana. He ignores John’s stiff shoulders and hard eyes as he wraps the blanket over his shoulders and hands him the cup of coffee. The coffee, surprisingly, tastes like the real stuff. 

“Got it from the staff room,” Fusco explains, even though John never asked. “Considering how much I paid for that banana, you better eat it. Peel and all. My kid’s gonna be living off noodles for the rest of the week.” 

It’s not the first time that John’s forgotten that Fusco’s a good man. 

xxx 

Eventually Root walks through the door. 

She’s armed and talking rapidly on the phone. It looks like a normal phone, so John imagines she’s either working some new cover or she’s just stopped caring. If it’s the later, he can’t really blame her. Although they should probably send Fusco home to his kid before the man gets caught in the crossfire. Again. 

She nods in their direction, but otherwise ignores them and keeps talking. Her voice’s cool. Calm. Professional. John would maybe buy it if she wasn’t white-knuckling the phone. 

After a while she ends the call and Fusco walks over to her. They speak in hushed voices. John looks away, staring at the wall again. Somewhere there’s a clock ticking. It’s a steady, even rhythm. With a bit of imagination, a man could start thinking that it sounded like a heart. The sound wears at him and he imagines shooting the damned thing off the wall. 

“I’m off,” Fusco says. John turns his head, surprised to find the man standing right next to him. “Your crazy lady friend gave me a list of errands to run. It’s about as long as my arm and I only understand half of it. You need something, I’m only a call away.” 

Before leaving he squeezes John’s shoulder. 

xxx 

Root leaves with Fusco. 

She doesn’t go far though. John can hear her voice on the other end of the door. She’s asking questions. Making demands. He wonders if he should get out there. Back her up with some muscle. But his body’s heavy, his limbs made of lead and his belly filled with rocks. If they threw him in the Hudson, he’d sink right to the bottom. He just can’t make himself move. Even the thought that he’s letting her down doesn’t spur him into motion. Instead it just weighs him down further. 

When she returns she takes Fusco’s place next to John. Her mascara’s smudged. 

“Fusco’s worried about you,” she says. 

John blinks in surprise. It’s not what he expected her to say at all. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. Root watches him with her head tilted, curious like a bird. She purses her lips as she waits for him to… do something. Say something. But John has nothing to say. Root had lost Sameen. She doesn’t need him to explain. 

“Yes,” she says, as if she’s reading his mind. “I know. Let’s go.” 

xxx 

She takes him to a room. 

Harold’s there, connected to dozens of whirring and beeping machines. He looks old. Half-dead. But still alive. 

The world begins to spin again. Root pushes him towards a chair and he sits down heavily. Everything’s blurry, tiny dots of lights sparking into existence across his field of vision. His lips tingle and he’s breaking into a cold sweat. Nausea stirs and bubbles in his belly. 

Root rubs his back, her nails scraping against his skin through the shirt. He must have taken his jacket off somewhere, but he doesn’t remember when, or where, or why. 

For the first time it hits him that perhaps he’s not okay.


End file.
